News industry optimism returns | Reader revenue success for Novara Media
And phone-hacking claimants seek costs of almost £2m from MGN
Welcome to your daily newsletter from Press Gazette on Tuesday 30 January, brought to you today with FT Strategies in partnership with Google News Initiative - proud to share their latest report on learnings from the Audience Diversity Academy. Read Unlocking Growth through Diversity now.
Optimism is slowly returning to the global news industry, according to WAN-IFRA’s major annual survey of news leaders.
We are a long way from the heady days of 2022. And overall there has been a major decline in both advertising and circulation revenues around the world.
But publishers are hopeful alternative revenue streams such as events, grant funding and platform partnerships will more than fill in the gap this year.
The survey is only 175 respondents spread out around the world, so may be of limited relevance to your particular corner of the news vineyard. But there are some useful insights in there about how we should tackle the big media themes of 2024, namely: growing reader revenue, declining referral traffic, tanking online advertising and the impact of generative AI.
One publisher feeling optimistic is the alt-left news site Novara Media which now has some 25 staff and is expanding its coverage further across the UK. Like The Guardian, it has adopted a sort of tip-jar model whereby readers pay to keep the site free for all. Readers are invited to set up a relatively small monthly direct debit and so far nearly 15,000 have done so. The site’s new North of England editor Craig Gent explained how Youtube has turned into a major driver of reader revenue.
We also have the latest from Prince Harry’s activities at the High Court. Oh for the days when scheming second-born royal sons could be bought off with a title and some land.
Instead, Prince Harry occupies himself tormenting publishers like Reach who (having made around 800 redundancies last year) could do without the distraction. He is seeking around £2m in legal costs on behalf of himself and other claimants in addition to the £140,600 awarded for historic invasions of privacy.
The biggest winners out of all this are, of course, lawyer David Sherborne and his learned friends.
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New from Press Gazette
Global news industry trends for 2024: Publishers optimistic on new revenue streams
A major survey of news industry trends globally has found leaders optimistic about the prospects for revenue growth in the year ahead despite “continued unpredictability” from challenges including falling referral traffic, Google phasing out third-party cookies and AI search engines.
Youtube drives increase in paying readers as Novara Media nears 15,000 donors
Social media has been a particular area of growth for Novara Media recently, North of England editor Craig Gent said, with Youtube watch time doubling in 2023 and its subscriber count up 300% to 666,000.
Harry hacking lawyer labels case against Mirror publisher ‘overwhelmingly successful’
A follow-up hearing dealing with the consequences of December’s ruling against MGN began in London on Monday, where the High Court heard the group of people who sued the publisher are currently seeking payment of £1,976,660 towards the legal costs of bringing “generic” allegations to court.
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News in brief
Laurence Fox libelled two people when he called them "paedophiles" on social media, a High Court judge has ruled as she called it "seriously harmful, defamatory and baseless". "The law affords few defences to defamation of this sort," she said.
The BBC has said Gary Lineker sharing a post calling for Israel to be banned from international football "wouldn’t constitute a breach of our social media guidance to flagship presenters". He deleted the post as he said it wasn't meant to be an endorsement. (BBC)
Ofcom says the new deadline for it to report back to the Culture Secretary about the public interest test relating to an Abu Dhabi-linked purchase of Telegraph Media Group is 11 March. Stakeholders wishing to provide new evidence have until 6 February. (Ofcom)
New York Times puzzles and games were played more than 8 billion times last year, of which 4.8 billion were Wordle alone. The publisher says it's working because: "We're not trying to get you to spend 24/7 in our app... We want to fit into your life". (Axios)
Previously on Press Gazette
Mail Online publisher Danny Groom explains partial paywall revenue strategy
Business Insider faces internal backlash over lockout for axed staff
Telegraph Media Group CEO Nick Hugh is out as takeover uncertainty continues
News media job cuts 2024 tracked: Year starts with at least 650 redundancies
Reach reveals ‘three pillars’ that prepare it for end of third-party cookies
Why news publishers should fight to stop rollout of Google Privacy Sandbox
